Cinematic interpretations of video games have a, uh, less-than-impressive track-record: Mortal Kombat, Super Mario Brothers, Double Dragon, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, D.O.A., Hitman, Bloodrayne, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, Alone in the Dark…
The list goes on. But it’s possible the psychic damage to gamers everywhere may soon be undone.
Sony’s Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune might possibly be getting the feature film treatment very soon. The game itself has often been compared to a fun summer action-adventure blockbuster, so chances are that if it jumps to the big screen, that’s exactly what they’ll go for.
The story features the Indiana Jones-like treasure hunter, Nate Drake, who is a descendant of famed explorer Sir Francis Drake. He believes he has discovered location of El Dorado, the fabled lost city of gold. Naturally, there’s a rival to contend with and a saucy, sexy lady who factors into the story as well. Furthermore, there are mutated creatures determined to keep Drake from his goal.
(A scribe named Kyle Ward was hired to pen the script. Interestingly, Ward is also involved with game-to-movie projects Hitman 2 and Kane and Lynch.)
God of War, a video game series that takes place in a world of Greek mythology on a cocktail of steroids and mescaline, may also be seeing a film version in the near future. There doesn’t seem to be too much information available yet beyond the canceled plan to have X-men 3 helmer Brett Ratner direct, but given the enormous success of 300 and the spate of Greek mythology movies due out next year, it seems likely that this will happen.
There’s an amusing video of God of War creator David Jaffe meeting notrious(ly bad) film director Uwe Boll, who is responsible for some of the worst video game movies out there. After a few minutes of forced politeness and light discussion about collaboration, Jaffe admits he would not want Boll to direct the potential God of War film:
Finally, there’s the well-publicized upcoming adaptation of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, starring Jake Gyllenhaal — which is significant in and of itself, for its not very often that video game movies score A-list actors to play their leads. 
It’s a Jerry Bruckheimer production, so expect a lot of action on a grandiose scale, and given all the promotional material, we can be sure we’ll be treated to a great many scenes of Gyllenhaal fighting topless.
Director Mike Newell, perhaps aware of the current perception of video game movies, had this to say concerning the nature of Prince of Persia:
“It’s not a videogame movie. It’s a great story. If you had read the script, you would know that it wasn’t a videogame. It’s very exciting and it’s immensely romantic and it’s like Lost Horizon. It takes you to somewhere you’ve never been.”
Only time will tell the outcome of these projects, but here’s hoping the curse of the video game movies is finally lifted.
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Hmm… Speaking of video games being turned into movies, did you see this little tidbit of interesting? http://mystmovie.com/
I met the guy who’s writing the script for that (oddly enough at 3am in an IHOP, but that’s beside the point) and he seemed pretty confident - albeit twitchy - that it was going to be good.
Also, did you ever see this? IGN went through all the trouble of making it fake, but that just made it really depressing. I’d be really interested in seeing a Legend of Zelda movie. Here’s the link to the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCzkz3gHb8
Ugggh, every time I watch it I get goosebumps.
Will I get booed if I admit that I liked Super Mario Bros the movie? It’s cheesy, but I went into it expecting it to be cheesy, and Yoshi was just SO cute.
I think the question could maybe be - are they picking the RIGHT video games to be turned into movies? Or maybe, what are people expecting for a movie of that game? If its a game known for its plotline or its identifiable characters - then the movie better have a damn good plotline/well-acted cast. If its known just for blowing $h*t up - then why watch $h*t blowing up when you can just play the video game and do it yourself? (Or at least, this is what I tell myself. This is probably the primary reason why most action flicks bore me. If I want action, I’ll play a video game.)
Also, thank you for the picture of Jake Gyllenhaal.
Some things need to change on those video game movies so there is a Mortal Kombat movie reboot happening but Warner Bros is bought the Midway products but no news if Warner is making the movie,
Samuel hadida is still attached to make the film of Capcom’s Onimusha but John Collee has to go and Kazunori Ito and Keiji Inafune will rewrite the script to follow the plot to Onimusha Warlords storyline
so Christophe Gans and Hadida will make some changes on the Onimusha film when it gets back on track.
I would like to see a Darkstalkers movie getting translated by Mortal Kombat producer Lawrence Kasanoff and Threshold Entertainment and Capcom making a deal with the movie makers.
A live action World Heroes movie would be great if Dragonball producers Rodney Liber and Rich Thorne and Bightlight Pictures Shawn Williamson to make the film and Charles Stone to write and direct the movie.
Thank You.
BRUCE ACOSTA
AUSTRALIA.
I hope to see more of this articles in the future.
interesting article ! thank very much.